The Struggle (13 page)

November 9, Saturday

Dear Diary
,

I’m sorry it’s been so long. Lately I’ve been too busy
or too depressed—or both—to write you.

Besides, with everything that’s happened I’m almost afraid to keep a diary at all anymore. But I
need
someone to turn to, because right now there’s not a single human being, not a single person on earth, that I’m not keeping something from.

Bonnie and Meredith can’t know the truth about Stefan. Stefan can’t know the truth about Damon. Aunt Judith can’t know about anything. Bonnie and Meredith know about Caroline and the diary; Stefan doesn’t. Stefan knows about the vervain I use every day now; Bonnie and Meredith don’t. Even though I’ve given both of them sachets full of the stuff. One good thing: it seems to work, or at least I haven’t been sleepwalking again since that night. But it would be a lie to say I haven’t been dreaming about Damon. He’s in all my nightmares.

My life is full of lies right now, and I need
someone
to be completely honest with. I’m going to hide this diary under the loose floorboard in the closet, so that no one will find it even if I drop dead and they clean out my room. Maybe one of Margaret’s grandchildren will be playing in there someday, and will pry up the board and pull it out, but until then, nobody. This diary is my last secret.

I don’t know why I’m thinking about death and dying. That’s Bonnie’s craze; she’s the one who thinks it would be so romantic. I know what it’s really like; there was nothing romantic about it when Mom and Dad died. Just the worst feelings in the world. I want to live for a good long time, marry Stefan, and be happy. And there’s no reason why I can’t, once all these problems are behind us.

Except that there are times when I get scared and I don’t believe that. And there are little things that shouldn’t matter, but they bother me. Like why Stefan still wears Katherine’s ring around his neck, even though I know he loves me. Like why he’s never said he loves me, even though I know it’s true.

It doesn’t matter. Everything will work out. It has to work out. And then we’ll be together and be happy. There’s no reason why we can’t. There’s no reason why we can’t. There’s no reason

Elena stopped writing, trying to keep the letters on the page in focus. But they only blurred further, and she shut the book before a betraying teardrop could fall on the ink. Then she went over to the closet, pried up the loose board with a nail file, and put the diary there.

She had the nail file in her pocket a week later as the three of them, she and Bonnie and Meredith, stood outside Caroline’s back door.

“Hurry up,” hissed Bonnie in agony, looking around the yard as if she expected something to jump out at them. “Come on, Meredith!”

“There,” said Meredith, as the key finally went the right way into the dead bolt lock and the doorknob yielded to her turning fingers. “We’re in.”

“Are you sure
they’re
not in? Elena, what if they come back early? Why couldn’t we do this in the daytime, at least?”

“Bonnie, will you get
inside?
We’ve been through all this. The maid’s always here in the daytime. And they won’t be back early tonight unless somebody gets sick at Chez Louis. Now, come on!” said Elena.

“Nobody would dare to get sick at Mr. Forbes’s birthday dinner,” Meredith said comfortingly to Bonnie as the smaller girl stepped in. “We’re safe.”

“If they’ve got enough money to go to expensive restaurants, you’d think they could afford
to leave a few lights on,” said Bonnie, refusing to be comforted.

Privately, Elena agreed with this. It was strange and disconcerting to be wandering through someone else’s house in the dark, and her heart pounded chokingly as they went up the stairs. Her palm, clutching the key chain flashlight that showed the way, was wet and slippery. But in spite of these physical symptoms of panic, her mind was still operating coolly, almost with detachment.

“It’s got to be in her bedroom,” she said.

Caroline’s window faced the street, which meant they had to be even more careful not to show a light there. Elena swung the tiny beam of the flashlight around with a feeling of dismay. It was one thing to plan to search someone’s room, to picture efficiently and methodically going through drawers. It was another thing actually to be standing here, surrounded by what seemed like thousands of places to hide something, and feeling afraid to touch anything in case Caroline noticed it had been disturbed.

The other two girls were also standing still.

“Maybe we should just go home,” Bonnie said
quietly. And Meredith did not contradict her.

“We have to try. At least try,” said Elena, hearing how tinny and hollow her voice sounded. She eased open a drawer on the highboy and shone the light onto dainty piles of lacy underwear. A moment’s poking through them assured her there was nothing like a book there. She straightened the piles and shut the drawer again. Then she let out her breath.

“It’s not that hard,” she said. “What we need to do is divide up the room and then search
everything
in our section, every drawer, every piece of furniture, every object big enough to hide a diary in.”

She assigned herself the closet, and the first thing she did was prod at the floorboards with her nail file. But Caroline’s boards all seemed to be secure and the walls of the closet sounded solid. Rummaging through Caroline’s clothes she found several things she’d lent the other girl last year. She was tempted to take them back, but of course she couldn’t. A search of Caroline’s shoes and purses revealed nothing, even when she dragged a chair over so that she could investigate the top shelf of the closet thoroughly.

Meredith was sitting on the floor examining a pile of stuffed animals that had been relegated to a chest with other childish mementos. She ran her long sensitive fingers over each, checking for slits in the material. When she reached a fluffy poodle, she paused.

“I gave this to her,” she whispered. “I think for her tenth birthday. I thought she’d thrown it away.”

Elena couldn’t see her eyes; Meredith’s own flashlight was turned on the poodle. But she knew how Meredith was feeling.

“I tried to make up with her,” she said softly. “I did, Meredith, at the Haunted House. But she as good as told me she would never forgive me for taking Stefan from her. I wish things could be different, but she won’t let them be.”

“So now it’s war.”

“So now it’s war,” said Elena, flat and final. She watched as Meredith put the poodle aside and picked up the next animal. Then she turned back to her own search.

But she had no better luck with the dresser than she had with the closet. And with every moment that passed she felt more uneasy, more
certain that they were about to hear a car pulling into the Forbeses’ driveway.

“It’s no use,” Meredith said at last, feeling underneath Caroline’s mattress. “She must have hidden it … wait. There’s something here. I can feel a corner.”

Elena and Bonnie stared from opposite ends of the room, momentarily frozen.

“I’ve got it. Elena, it’s a diary!”

Relief swooped through Elena then, and she felt like a crumpled piece of paper being straightened and smoothed. She could move again. Breathing was wonderful. She’d known, she’d known all along that nothing
really
terrible could happen to Stefan. Life couldn’t be that cruel, not to Elena Gilbert. They were all safe now.

But Meredith’s voice was puzzled. “It’s a diary. But it’s green, not blue. It’s the wrong one.”

“What?”
Elena snatched the little book, shining her light on it, trying to make the emerald green of the cover change into sapphire blue. It didn’t work. This diary was almost exactly like hers, but it wasn’t hers.

“It’s Caroline’s,” she said stupidly, still not wanting to believe it.

Bonnie and Meredith crowded close. They all looked at the closed book, and then at one another.

“There might be clues,” said Elena slowly.

“It’s only fair,” agreed Meredith. But it was Bonnie who actually took the diary and opened it.

Elena peered over her shoulder at Caroline’s spiky back-slanted writing, so different from the block letters of the purple notes. At first her eyes wouldn’t focus, but then a name leapt out at her.
Elena.

“Wait, what’s that?”

Bonnie, who was the only one actually in a position to read more than one or two words, was silent a moment, her lips moving. Then she snorted.

“Listen to this,” she said and read: “‘Elena’s the most selfish person I’ve ever known. Everyone thinks she’s so together, but it’s really just coldness. It’s sickening the way people suck up to her, never realizing that she doesn’t give a damn about anyone or anything except Elena.’”

“Caroline
says that? She should talk!” But Elena could feel heat in her face. It was, practically, what Matt had said about her when she was after Stefan.

“Go on, there’s more,” said Meredith, poking at Bonnie, who continued in an offended voice.

“‘Bonnie’s almost as bad these days, always trying to make herself important. The newest thing is pretending she’s psychic so people will pay attention to her. If she was
really
psychic she’d figure out that Elena is just using her.’”

There was a heavy pause, and then Elena said, “Is that all?”

“No, there’s a bit about Meredith. ‘Meredith doesn’t do anything to stop it. In fact, Meredith doesn’t
do
anything; she just watches. It’s as if she can’t act; she can only react to things. Besides, I’ve heard my parents talking about her family—no wonder she never mentions them.’ What’s that supposed to mean?”

Meredith hadn’t moved, and Elena could see only her neck and chin in the dim light. But she spoke quietly and steadily. “It doesn’t matter. Keep on looking, Bonnie, for something about Elena’s diary.”

“Try around October eighteenth. That was when it was stolen,” said Elena, putting her questions aside. She’d ask Meredith about it later.

There was no entry for October eighteenth or the weekend after; in fact, there were only a few entries for the following weeks. None of them mentioned the diary.

“Well, that’s it then,” said Meredith, sitting back. “This book is useless. Unless we want to blackmail
her
with it. You know, like we won’t show hers if she won’t show yours.”

It was a tempting idea, but Bonnie spotted the flaw. “There’s nothing bad about Caroline in here; it’s all just complaints about other people. Mostly us. I’ll bet Caroline would
love
to have it read out loud in front of the whole school. It’d make her day.”

“So what do we do with it?”

“Put it back,” said Elena tiredly. She swung her light around the room, which seemed to her eyes to be filled with subtle differences from when they’d come in. “We’ll just have to keep on pretending we don’t know she has my diary, and hope for another chance.”

“All right,” said Bonnie, but she went on
thumbing through the little book, occasionally giving vent to an indignant snort or hiss. “Will you listen to this!” she exclaimed.

“There isn’t time,” Elena said. She would have said something else, but at that moment Meredith spoke, her tone commanding everyone’s immediate attention.

“A car.”

It took only a second to ascertain that the vehicle was pulling up into the Forbeses’ driveway. Bonnie’s eyes and mouth were wide and round and she seemed to be paralyzed, kneeling by the bed.

“Go! Go on,” said Elena, snatching the diary from her. “Turn the flashlights off and get out the back door.”

They were already moving, Meredith urging Bonnie forward. Elena dropped to her knees and lifted the bedspread, pulling up at Caroline’s mattress. With her other hand she pushed the diary forward, wedging it between the mattress and the dust ruffle. The thinly covered box springs bit into her arm from below, but even worse was the weight of the queen-size mattress bearing down from above. She gave
the book a few more nudges with her fingertips and then pulled her arm out, tugging the bedspread back in place.

She gave one wild glance back at the room as she left; there was no time to fix anything more now. As she moved swiftly and silently toward the stairs, she heard a key in the front door.

What followed was a sort of dreadful game of tag. Elena knew they were not deliberately chasing her, but the Forbes family seemed determined to corner her in their house. She turned back the way she had come as voices and lights materialized in the hall as they headed up the stairs. She fled from them into the last doorway down the hall, and they seemed to follow. They moved across the landing; they were right outside the master bedroom. She turned toward the adjoining bathroom, but then saw lights spring to life under the closed door, cutting off her escape.

She was trapped. At any moment Caroline’s parents might come in. She saw the french windows leading to a balcony and made her decision in that same instant.

Outside, the air was cool, and her panting
breath showed faintly. Yellow light burst forth from the room beside her, and she huddled even farther to the left, keeping out of its path. Then, the sound she had been dreading came with terrible clarity: the snick of a door handle, followed by a billowing of curtains inward as the french windows opened.